Advancing Equitable Access To And Success In Work-Based Learning

The economic and societal instability brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic compounded and laid bare the inequities in American education and workforce systems. It also forced policymakers to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that programs remained accessible.

Amid these unprecedented challenges, the states in the NGA Center’s Policy Academy on Scaling Work-Based Learning convened monthly from December 2020 through May 2021 to share strategies for ensuring equitable access to and success in work-based learning (WBL). Throughout the programming, the Policy Academy’s mentor states exhibited best practices that were not only essential for the stability of their programs during the pandemic but are key pillars for scaling equitable work-based learning systems.